S21

This place will haunt me forever. It used to be a high school until the Khmer Rouge turned it into a prison. it is located just in a normal street near the Russian Market. You would never know what went on there. In fact, it was not until 2 weeks after the Vietnamese liberated the city that it was discovered....by the smell. Men, women and children were all bought here for interrogation (read: tortured) for 1-3 days before being transported by truck to the Killing Fields where they were executed. No life was spared. They documented every single person who came through and their photos and faces still swim before my eyes. It is like a bad road smash where you just can't look away. I felt like I owed it to every single one of them to see their faces. I tried but it was just too overwhelming. Face after face after face. Each with a story to tell. Each etched in their own personal pain. Even in death, they do not look in peace. They look like what they were. Tortured souls. I will never understand mans capacity to do this to each other. In the famous words of Forrest Gump.....that's all I have to say about that.